Like a clean cow chewing cud...so Bede describes the poet Caedmon. This blog is a place to report news, calls for papers, news items, and other things of interest to the Late Antique, Patristic, Early Medieval, and Book Arts folk and to just chat about things medieval.
Also see other blogs at The Heroic Age and Modern Medieval.

About Me

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Well, as typical in the six weeks from the beginning of October to just before Thanksgiving, the teacher of 5 college level courses, 3 of which are writing courses, and four of which are new preps, is swamped with only occasional forays into thinking about other things. Sadly, none of them blog related. So while I have a half post on the Undark "Dark" Ages that I hope to finish next week, very little has been done here, or really anywhere in my "life of the mind" corner of existence. Soon to change for a few weeks before the final projects come in and time to finish off the semester and begin prepping for the next.

While I start writing again, an internet friend by the name of Troels Forschammer has posted on Usenet in Tolkien related groups a collection of blog posts and other related Tolkienana on the web each month. That is a welcome addition to Tolkien studies I think. I also think his efforts deserve a wider audience than the Usenet groups. So I offered to share his posts here for those interested in things Tolkien, and Troels accepted. So this is the sixth in Troels' series, for October 2010, and I'm a bit behind in posting it since Troels sent it to me a few weeks ago. Still, it should prove useful to folks. Thanks for doing this, Troels! I think it a real service to other Tolkien readers, fans, and scholars.
Tolkien Transactions VI October 2010

The time has come for a new issue of my attempt to extract the best or most interesting (in my highly subjective estimate) of Tolkien-related events this past month. This time I have ignored a lot of things such as the news that Tolkien is the third-highest earning dead celebrity (following Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley), that _Mythlore_ can be read at the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ site, a theory about Lewis being inspired to prolificacy (shot down in the comments), that some author has made a snide remark at Lewis and Tolkien in a footnote in his autobiography and a lot of other items. Still, as usual, please chime in with interesting stuff that you have found elsewhere! All the usual disclaimers apply about newness, completeness and relevance (or any other implication of responsibility) :-)
Sources

From the description at the Tolkien Library site: 'Very interesting lot of letters discussing Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis. and the unpublished book by W.H. Auden on J.R.R. Tolkien.' I fully agree that this is a 'very interesting lot of letters' -- offered for sale, but if you're only interested in the contents, you can read them on the Tolkien Library site (thanks to Pieter for making these available for fans on a tight budget!)

PC, Tuesday, October 19, 2010, "A one page handwritten letter signed J.R.R. Tolkien to BBC Radio Producer Terence Tiller" www.tolkienlibrary.com/dmiller/CLP0126.htm The Tolkien Library offers a handwritten Tolkien letter for sale. While this in itself is possibly interesting to fans with a bigger Tolkien budget than mine, the letter itself is not without interest. Writing to BBC Radio Producer Terence Tiller, Tolkien gives his permission to Tiller to make an adaptation for radio of _The Lord of the Rings_, but he also expresses his doubts about how such an adaptation can be achieved. The story on the Tolkien Library site also includes a good, fairly high resolution, scan of the letter.

Does any of you know the series _The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica_? Apparently this series features three Inklings, Tolkien, Lewis and Williams, as 'Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica', doing some fantastic things. The series has its own web-site at www.heretherebedragons.net/. It'd be interesting to hear if anyone knows this series and what they think about it.

This is an announcement of the list of contents for the upcoming book, _Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J.R.R. Tolkien_, edited by Kathleen Dubs and Janka Kašcáková. At 150 pages, I can't help but wonder what the price will be (at the time of writing this, the book does not yet show up for pre-order anywhere that I can find)? The earlier volume that Jason speaks of (_Thruths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings' Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy_) sells at £25.49 at Amazon UK, so we should probably expect something in the same range. I agree with Jason that the list of contents does look promising (in addition to Jason's essay, there are two essays on Tom Bombadil, one about 'Grotesque Characters' in _TH_ and _LotR_ and other promising titles as well), and I will look forward to the reviews.

Oskar Stevens, Friday, October 8, 2010, "Tree man rumored to star in
new Tolkien movie"
<http://www.execte.com/other/2010/tree-man-rumored-to-star-in-new-tolkien-movie-08103555.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/26729wf>
Sometimes the news in which Tolkien's name appears are . . .
grotesque to say the least. The story of the Indonesian Dede is
certainly one of those (the above is just one of many links to
variations of this story). I shan't say why this story suddenly
(re-)surfaces, but as one commenter said, the poor man has probably
had his full of being the freak. Fortunately there are no Ents in
_The Hobbit_ and Aragorn hadn't encountered them either prior to the
War of the Ring, so I hope that he is safe from Hollywood for now.

JDR, Saturday, October 2, 2010, "Christine O'Donnell, Tolkien
Scholar?"
<http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2010/10/christine-odonnell-tolkien-scholar.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/383kpac>
Following the sudden rise to notoriety of O'Donnell, Rateliff
comments on her paper, thinking that '[o]n the whole, this is a
decent little piece' and that '[w]here O'Donnell is on much firmer
ground is in her discussion of Eowyn'. In the end, his conclusion is
that he would 'like to see more work in the field from the intern!'
The intern being O'Donnell's niece, Jenna Murry.

The Hobbit films . . .
<http://news.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tolkien+Hobbit+Jackson+Film+OR+Movie>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/36jzcc3>
and
<http://the-hobbit-movie.com/>
As in September the planned films inspired by Tolkien's _The Hobbit_
make up a very large proportion of the news-stories mentioning
Tolkien's name. It appears that there have been some four main
stories to cover this month: the negotiations concerning the
financial re-organisation of MGM resulting about mid-month in the
go-ahead for the film, the troubles with the New Zealand actors',
that Peter Jackson is taking over as director of the films after
Guillermo del Toro left the project in May, that Jackson's _Hobbit_
may become the most expensive film ever made (until it is surpassed
by some other film). The clear runner-up has been all the casting
stories. I'll let you in on a little secret: I really do not care! I
will go see the film (with my expectations probably better adjusted
this time round . . .), and I am grateful for the attention the
films have created for Tolkien's work, but as for the rest of the
media attention on the upcoming films I'd much rather that it'd go
away.

BC, Saturday, October 30, 2010, "1945-6 Tolkien's darkest time -
whilst writing the Notion Club Papers"
<http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2010/10/1945-6-tolkiens-darkest-time-whilst.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/36hzlme>
This is why I am subscribed to various other news-feeds that deliver
me tons of uninteresting (or worse) items. Bruce Charlton is here
blogging about _The Notion Club Papers_ and in these two posts
Charlton argues that Tolkien was having a nervous breakdown in the
period of 1945-6 when he was working on this book rather than on
LotR, arguing further that Tolkien experiences during this time
influenced his writing also when he took up writing LotR again. I'll
happily go through another thousand drab and irrelevant items to
discover another interesting source such as this.

Unknown, Monday, October 25, 2010, ""Rationality" sets science
fiction apart from fantasy"
<http://io9.com/5671561/rationality-sets-science-fiction-apart-from-fantasy>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/24r4lvx>
This article reports on an essay by one Simone Caroti who argues
that the use of estrangement and cognition is the key factor
separating science fiction from fantasy. The author of this review /
commentary agrees to a large extent with Caroti, but not entirely.
Caroti's paper is also available on-line from
<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol6/iss1/11/>. I haven't had
time to read Caroti's paper, so I cannot very well comment on this,
but I remain sceptical of this attempt to create a distinction
between science fiction and fantasy (between magic and technology)
that is based on rationality -- that 'that science fiction uses a
"plausible rational framework" to support the speculative aspects of
the story.' as the unknown author of the review puts it.

Anthony and Jessica, Sunday, October 17, 2010, ""Frodo Lives!"...Or
Does He?"
<http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com/2010/10/frodo-livesor-does-he.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/2eb4lar>
An obituary for Len Rosenberg, Tolkien enthusiast, a 'part of the
original New York Tolkien Society, founded by Richard "Dick" Plotz'
and partner of the late Alexei Kondratiev. Also posted here is a
link to Len's 1973 college paper titled, as the blog-post, '"Frodo
Lives!"...Or Does He?', which deals with the reception of Tolkien's
work in the US.

DB, Friday, October 15, 2010, "religion in Middle-earth"
<http://calimac.livejournal.com/474130.html>
Also posted to the Mythsoc Yahoo mailing list:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythsoc/message/21512>
David Bratman responds to two parallel queries on the Mythsoc list,
from John Rateliff asking which books on Tolkien and religion that
the members on the list could recommend, and by Ellen Denham asking
for input for a panel she was to appear in where the starting point
was Lin Carter's criticism of the lack of religion in Tolkien's
LotR. Acting both as a response directly to Lin Carter as well as a
more general commentary on the question and the most relevant of the
available books on the subjec this is a highly recommendable
reading.

I have agreed (truth be told, I eagerly offered to do it) to write
the review of _Tolkien Studies_ vol. 7 for _Mallorn_, the journal of
the Tolkien Society, so I expect to also post some longer reviews of
the articles in the Tolkien newsgroups.

DB, Thursday, October 28, 2010, "Beowulf iss meyn nahma"
<http://calimac.livejournal.com/479148.html>
Bratman's been to see a performance of the first part of _Beowulf_
(ending, as far as I can make out, about line 1060) recited in the
original Anglo-Saxon. I'd certainly love to try that, though I'm
afraid I'd have to spend a lot of time studying the poem to get
ready (I can, with the help of a modern translation, only just make
sense of the Anglo-Saxon text -- see e.g.
<http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/19.html>)

Gray Hunter, Sunday, October 24, 2010, "Book Review: _The Music of
The Lord of the Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard
Shore's Scores_ by Doug Adams"
<http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-music-of-the/>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ccq6r4>
While reading this review -- in particular so soon after reading
Jessica Burke's account of the performance at Radio City below -- I
had the idea that what I would really like to do was to have a
version of Jackson's films that is purged of all acting: a version
that shows scenes, settings, landscapes only, and where actors, if
present at all, are only a part of the setting. they are not trying
to do plot. This version of the films, I would have shown while
listening to a live performance of Howard Shore's music, and thus I
would have the two things that they really got exactly right in the
New Line Cinema films.

JDR, Thursday, October 21, 2010, "A Day at Marquette (part two)"
<http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2010/10/day-at-marquette-part-two.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/3xwygls>
So, this ends up here ;-) Starting as the second part of Rateliff's
report of his stay at the Marquette (looking, among other things,
into Taum Santoski's papers and Boorman's LotR script), this post
continues to explain how he found himself with a copy of a new(ish)
book, _Fantasy, Myth and the Measure of Truth: Tales of Pullman,
Lewis, Tolkien, Macdonald, and Hoffman_ by William Gray, because of
references to Rateliff's own work in the book. To cut it short, the
book has made Rateliff reconsider his policy of not buying books on
multiple authors, even if one of them is Tolkien.

Jessica Burke, Monday, October 11, 2010, "Howard Shore's Musical
Score at Radio City"
<http://herenistarionnets.blogspot.com/2010/10/howard-shores-musical-score-at-radio.html>
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/2e5k9pe>
Jessica Burke went to hear the live performance of Howard Shore's
score for Peter Jackson's _The Two Towers_ film together with the
other char of the North East Tolkien Society, but though she loved
the score, she was not happy about the experience, feeling that the
simultaneous screening of the Jackson film took attention away from
the music, and that a not insignificant fraction of the audience was
there not for the music, but for the film.

Reading LotR

One Elethena is blogging at the Northeast Tolkien Society web-site,
Heren Istarion. Elethena is evidently reading LotR in connection
with a class, but whether as a student or teacher is not clear to
me. Most of these pieces are fairly short and quickly read, but they
nevertheless make some interesting reflections.

_Mythlore_, vol. 47 no. 10, October 2010, Whole no. 339
This issue of _Mythlore_ is dedicated to Alan Garner in celebration
of the fiftieth anniversary of the release of his first novel, _The
Weirdstone of Brisingamen_. The reviews are interesting and
readable, but not really relevant here, and so there is, this month,
very little of direct Tolkien relevance.
Under the heading "Free Lecture on J.R.R. Tolkien" we find the
following announcement:
Long-time Mythopoeic Society Member and Pro-fessor Mike
Foster will discuss ‚J.R.R. Tolkien and the Languages of
His Legendarium. at 6:00 PM, Monday, November 29, 2010, in
the Prucha Archives Reading Room in Raynor Library (1355 W.
Wisconsin Avenue) at Marquette University.
If any AFT/RABT poster has the opportunity and inclination to go, I
for one would be very interested in a report.

_Amon Hen_ 225, September 2010,
Ian Collier, "Announcements"
The good news is that the talks given at the TS Oxonmoots are now
going to be collected and published in some form of proceedings --
the Peter Roe Booklets were mentioned, but possibly just as an
example of format.
Angela Nicholas, "Halbarad Dúnadan: an unsung hero"
An attempt to look at the (scarce) evidence that illuminates
Halbarad's character, with an associated attempt (albeit this is not
stated quite in quite as forthright a manner) to stretch this
evidence to breaking point in extrapolation. Still, if you have an
interest in Halbarad, these four (!) pages will tell you all there
is to know -- and then some :-)

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

It is with very great pleasure that I announce the publication of The Heroic Age Issue 14.1! This issue marks a number of rather exciting firsts. It is the first, so far as I know, joint publication of a shared cluster of essays between two different organizations, with two different emphases in the field, in two different formats (one entirely online and the other chiefly [though not exclusively] in print. For us at HA it is also the first of a series of new practices: in this case, guest editors putting together a section of essays in their areas of expertise. In this inaugural issue, we have Eileen Joy of postmedieval and the Babel Working Group has put together a cluster of essays published in both HA and in postmedieval: Essays by Elaine Treharne, Gillian Overing and Clare Lees, and Mary Dockray-Miller appear in HA at http://www.heroicage.org. At the Palgrave website for a limited time, essays appearing in the postmedieval authored by Jacqueli! ne A Stodnick and Renée R Trilling , Kathleen Davis, Carol Braun Pasternack, and Lisa M. C. Weston and appear at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/pmed/journal/v1/n3/index.html#Critical-exchange-II:-The-State-of-Early-English-Studies-(Editor:-Eileen-A.-Joy). In addition, John Sodeberg contributes the first of a new column for us in the field of late antique/early medieval archaeology.

Another first for HA is that we have an embarrassment of riches. So we have split the issue slightly in order to give each section its due and recognize each set of authors for their excellent work. 14.2 which will appear later this month is guest edited by Andrew Rabin on Anglo-Saxon Law. We are pleased to have Kathryn Powell, Lisa Oliver, Nathan Breen, Jay Paul Gates, Rebecca Brackman, Daniela Fruscione. Along with these fine articles, we are quite pleased to have a review essay by Marijane Osborn. A full table of contents is available at: http://www.heroicage.org/issues/14/toc.php

I'd like to thank Deanna Forsman, Eileen Joy, Andrew Rabin, and Brad Eden for their hard work in helping all this come to fruition. I would also like to mention and thank Bill Hamilton, Kris Vetter, and Heather Flowers for editing and copy editing; without them performing this task, this issue would not appear. Thank you all. I hope you, the reader enjoy the issue(s), and as always, commentary is welcome.